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3) Ukraine and Zelensky doesn’t have to thank the U.S. or Trump—the U.S. and Trump need to thank Ukraine and Zelensky. This is for two reasons.
First of all, Ukraine gave up the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world voluntarily at the end of the USSR under the Budapest accords guaranteed by the U.S., France, UK, and Russia, giving up several trillion of dollars of nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees for its territorial integrity which Russia has violated and the U.S., UK and France vowed to protect. If Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons, it would have been one of the most nuclear armed countries in the world and Russia would have never invaded. We, the West, committed to defend Ukraine in exchange for its denuclearization so there is no need for Ukraine to thank the U.S. for keeping its promises. See
https://www.armscontrol.org/.../ukraine-nuclear-weapons...
Secondly, Ukraine is defending not just its own territorial integrity but the future of Europe. I have been interviewing people from the Russian-occupied territories the last few weeks and they really do live in a Stalinist prison camp that is unbelievably oppressive. This is what Putin wants to bring to much of Europe and we need to stop him in Ukraine to save our own democratic future, at any price (respecting human rights).
In was in Chechnya 25 years ago documenting the same Russian abuses, together at the same hotel with the murdered Anna Polikovskaya, the murdered Natalia Estemirova, and Memorial’s Oleg Orlov who was imprisoned in February 2024 for “discrediting the Russian military” and later released in a prisoner exchange.
The difference in 1999-2000 is that we could operate in Russia, under the watchful eye of the FSB (the current KGB). The FSB were staying at the same hotel as us, the ACCA in Ingushetia, and one night I found a few cigarette butts on the floor of my room just to let me know they were watching us. Buy we could go to Moscow, Human Rights Watch had a staff and office in Moscow, and do our work despite the dangers.
Since the Russian invasion of 2022 (and long before that), that limited space for activism and civil society has closed down in Russia. There are no more independent journalists or human rights groups operating in Russia and the HRW office has long closed down, and Anna and Natalia and Nemtsov and so many others were simply murdered by Putin. Yet this is what Trump embraces instead of the freedom-loving Ukrainian people, and he has refrained of any criticism of the murderous dictator Putin, instead trying to humiliate the freedom-fighting Zelensky. But Zelensky isn’t humiliated, he stands proud and strong because you cannot be humiliated by people you don’t respect.
Shame on you, you twice impeached and felon convicted orange wanna be. You and your republican supplicants do not deserve our respect—I won’t even spell republicans with a capital R because they don’t deserve that honorific. Shame on you betrayers of our American Values.
Peter Bouckaert, Senior Director at
Fortify Rights
3) Ukraine and Zelensky doesn’t have to thank the U.S. or Trump—the U.S. and Trump need to thank Ukraine and Zelensky. This is for two reasons.
First of all, Ukraine gave up the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world voluntarily at the end of the USSR under the Budapest accords guaranteed by the U.S., France, UK, and Russia, giving up several trillion of dollars of nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees for its territorial integrity which Russia has violated and the U.S., UK and France vowed to protect. If Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons, it would have been one of the most nuclear armed countries in the world and Russia would have never invaded. We, the West, committed to defend Ukraine in exchange for its denuclearization so there is no need for Ukraine to thank the U.S. for keeping its promises. See https://www.armscontrol.org/.../ukraine-nuclear-weapons...
Secondly, Ukraine is defending not just its own territorial integrity but the future of Europe. I have been interviewing people from the Russian-occupied territories the last few weeks and they really do live in a Stalinist prison camp that is unbelievably oppressive. This is what Putin wants to bring to much of Europe and we need to stop him in Ukraine to save our own democratic future, at any price (respecting human rights).
In was in Chechnya 25 years ago documenting the same Russian abuses, together at the same hotel with the murdered Anna Polikovskaya, the murdered Natalia Estemirova, and Memorial’s Oleg Orlov who was imprisoned in February 2024 for “discrediting the Russian military” and later released in a prisoner exchange.
The difference in 1999-2000 is that we could operate in Russia, under the watchful eye of the FSB (the current KGB). The FSB were staying at the same hotel as us, the ACCA in Ingushetia, and one night I found a few cigarette butts on the floor of my room just to let me know they were watching us. Buy we could go to Moscow, Human Rights Watch had a staff and office in Moscow, and do our work despite the dangers.
Since the Russian invasion of 2022 (and long before that), that limited space for activism and civil society has closed down in Russia. There are no more independent journalists or human rights groups operating in Russia and the HRW office has long closed down, and Anna and Natalia and Nemtsov and so many others were simply murdered by Putin. Yet this is what Trump embraces instead of the freedom-loving Ukrainian people, and he has refrained of any criticism of the murderous dictator Putin, instead trying to humiliate the freedom-fighting Zelensky. But Zelensky isn’t humiliated, he stands proud and strong because you cannot be humiliated by people you don’t respect.
Shame on you, you twice impeached and felon convicted orange wanna be. You and your republican supplicants do not deserve our respect—I won’t even spell republicans with a capital R because they don’t deserve that honorific. Shame on you betrayers of our American Values.
Peter Bouckaert, Senior Director at Fortify Rights
